Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
please
do yourself a favour and read these 'postcards from Vietnam' by Linh Dinh from the Literary Review of 2001 i think:
http://www.theliteraryreview.org/secretlife/linhdinh.html
col.
http://www.theliteraryreview.org/secretlife/linhdinh.html
col.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Lindsay Anderson 'Is That All There Is?'
'Fighting means commitment, means believing what you say, and saying what you believe. It will also mean being called sentimental, irresponsible, self-righteous, extremist and out-of-date by those who equate maturity with scepticism, art with amusement, and responsibility with romantic excess. And it must mean a new kind of intellectual and artist, who is not frightened or scornful of his fellows.'
- Lindsay Anderson
- Lindsay Anderson
'No film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude. Implicit in our attitude is a belief in freedom, in the importance of people and in the significance of the every day.'- Lindsay Anderson
There is a great site-in-the-making, at www.lindsayanderson.com, run by the Lindsay Anderson Memorial Foundation.
Lindsay Anderson's final film is the autobiographical 'Is That All There Is?' (1993). I think it is a fabulous film. There is a wonderful bit at the beginning where he makes himself a Redoxin- orangey vitamin effervescent drink- and as he puts the tablet in the water and it bubbles and fizzes, it seemed like a beautiful metaphor for comittment, intelligence, and imagination. It may be love-y but that's what I thought. Here are some scren-captures:
Saturday, March 15, 2008
why i love poetry part one
the day before yesterday, yesterday and again today i have been drawn back to a wonderful pamphlet/ chapbook of poetry: 'quintets' by Iliassa Sequin. I have taken a photograph of the cover but it doesn't get across the understated charm of this book; the cover is barely-percebtibly textured; the endpapers (is that what they're called; i've been researching on wikipedia but can't be certain- anyway, imagine a secondary cover, inside the cover) are beautiful, and pink, and the text on the front and back is pink too, of, as far as my eyes can tell, the same sort.
there's an image on the front, black-and-white, of a window.
there's an extraordinary, striking image inside, of a person whoseems to be branching from every part; it looks skeletal, as though their flesh and skin is dissolving and being replaced by stubby branches, and some not so stubby, all numbered.
and then you open the book and start reading. there are five sets of five short poems, so five quintets but maybe also one. (how i wish this structure carried on and there were endless sets of five- so five series of five books of five pamphlets of five quintets of five sections).
the poems are stunning. there's a kind of separation in the structure, and each poem and each quintet is numbered but the overall effect (a bit like the picture of the branching person) is a sense of the, to use a couple of words that suggestively appear in the poem, 'infrangible' and 'glutinous'.
it was published in 1991 and there do seem to be copies on abebooks including one signed.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Saturday, March 08, 2008
BBC'S WHITE SEASON.
I have serious problems with the trailer for this season of documentaries (and one drama) on the BBC. It depicts a white man, whose face is written over by brown hands, suggesting (strongly), as Yuri Prasad has so rightly written:
'Eventually the man’s face is covered in so much ink that he can no longer be seen against the black background.
The catch line of this appalling advert is, “Is the white working class becoming invisible?” and its message could hardly be clearer – yes it is, and it’s the foreigners who are to blame.'
The catch line of this appalling advert is, “Is the white working class becoming invisible?” and its message could hardly be clearer – yes it is, and it’s the foreigners who are to blame.'
Unfortunately I missed the 'Rivers of Blood' docu last night but it sounds awful.
I find the trailer very offensive. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg54xTaJ-Kc
Link to BBC PAGE for season info- http://www.bbc.co.uk/white/poles.shtml
Link to Yuri Prasad's article-
Sunday, March 02, 2008
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